Sooner or later it was bound to happen. The lack of sidewalks along East State Street near the Illinois Tollway has led to the death of one pedestrian and left another in critical condition.

These were two of four businessmen from Shanghai, China, who had gotten off the O'Hare bus at the Clock Tower stop. According to the Register Star, "Weixue Liu, 27, of Shanghai, China, was pronounced dead at 11:38 p.m. Monday in the emergency room at OSF Saint Anthony Medical Center. ... His colleague, Zhang Xin, 36, of Shanghai, China, remained in critical condition, police said." The men were walking along East State to their hotel.

The official cause of this tragedy is a hit-and-run driver. The larger explanation is that these men, who were in Rockford to meet with officials of UTC Aerospace Systems about a joint aviation project, ventured into the hodgepodge of roadways, hotels, a busy intercity bus station, restaurants, convention centers and a tollway interchange.

When people on foot go into this no man's land, they take their lives into their hands. Those of us who live here know that. We stay in our cars.

These men were just walking to their hotel. Rockford's hotel neighborhood looks like the hotels were dropped willy-nilly out of the sky by an Oklahoma twister. How would you find yours?

It's well past time to start asking why such a poorly planned area was allowed to happen. There was no overall development plan that said hotels go here, restaurants go here, bus stations go here, and all will be connected by pedestrian paths that keep walkers away from the roadside.

This incident should send a message to business travelers and others that if you come to Rockford on the airport bus and have not arranged for someone to drive you to your hotel, you will risk your life if you walk anywhere. Can we please build some sidewalks before this happens again?

I can'tresist having some fun with FOX talk show host Megyn Kelly's insistence that both Santa Claus and Jesus Christ are white.

Santa Claus American-style has little to do with St. Nicholas, a fourth-century Greek bishop. Our modern Santa was first drawn by 19th-century political cartoonist Thomas Nast of Harper's Weekly. His political cartoons could be so devastating to politicians that the much-used word "nasty" comes from his name!

Refining "The Night Before Christmas" author Clement Moore's concept of Santa as "a right jolly old elf," Nast gave us Santa as a fat man in a red suit, his workshop at the North Pole, reading letters from children, and Santa keeping "naughty and nice" lists, like today's NSA.

Page 2 of 2 - Nast's roly-poly Santa went mass market thanks in part to Coca-Cola ad man Haddon Sundblom in the 1930s.

Rudolph, the red-nosed commander of the Airborne Reindeer Squadron, was conjured up in 1939 by Bob May, an ad man at Montgomery Ward in Chicago. May almost named him Reginald!

And Jesus did not look like that picture of the long-haired Norwegian hippie knocking at a door to see if anyone's home. Jesus the human was a Palestinian Jew. This Mediterranean man was the product of co-mingled ethnicities and races in the crossroads of the ancient world. He most likely had curly hair, a beard, cafe au lait skin and brown eyes.